Wednesday, May 18, 2016

The Library Company recently acquired
an important copy of Jane Kilby Welsh’s two-volume Lectures on Mineralogy and Geology (Boston, 1832-33) inscribed by
William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The
Liberator and proponent of immediate emancipation, to Grace Bustill Douglass
(1782-1842), African American educator and founding member of the biracial Philadelphia
Female Anti-Slavery Society. It is furthermore inscribed by Grace’s daughter
and fellow abolitionist, Sarah Mapps Douglass (1806-1882). These volumes not
only complement the Library Company’s existing holdings related to Sarah Mapps Douglass, but help to flesh out an important historical gap regarding the
nature of science pedagogy at Sarah’s school for African American girls.

Independent of the volumes’
provenance, Welsh’s Lectures on
Mineralogy and Geology is an uncommon title that can be useful for thinking
about the history of women and science in early America. Although a relatively obscure figure, Welsh’s
scientific interests and aims can be discerned from her pedagogical writing and
provide important context for reconstructing the Douglasses’ use of her work.

Jane Kilby Welsh was probably the
daughter of John Welsh, a Boston merchant who died in 1789. She spent part of
her adult life in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her earliest known written work
is A Botanical Catechism: Containing Introductory Lessons for
Students in Botany (Northampton, Mass., 1819), a rudimentary
question-and-answer introduction to the Linnaean system of classification. Renowned
science educator and author Almira Hart Lincoln Phelps (1793-1884) admired her
predecessor in scientific writing, believing the work to be “the first attempt
by an American lady to illustrate the science.” This was not Welsh’s only work
on botany. A review of Lectures on
Mineralogy and Geology appearing in The
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal identifies Welsh as the author of The Pastime of Learning, with Sketches of
Rural Scenes (1831), a dialogue book documenting the botanical pursuits of
“Mr. and Mrs. G” and their children. Sophisticated botanical knowledge is
disseminated through a domestic narrative that would have been compelling to
young readers.Lectures on Mineralogy and
Geology continues the story of the “G” family as they learn how to collect
and evaluate rocks, minerals, shells, and fossils. To write Lectures, Welsh corresponded with prominent
geologists, including Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864) of Amherst. Like many women scientific writers of her time
– and indeed, men like Hitchcock -- Welsh believed the pursuit of scientific
knowledge was a spiritual process that confirmed intelligent design. Paraphrasing
Alexander Pope in her preface, Welsh hoped that “the youthful mind, while thus
exploring the works of nature, will be elevated with gratitude, adoration, and
love, to the view of Nature’s God.”

Garrison and the Douglass Family

Masthead from The Liberator (Boston, 1831).

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was a recent convert to immediatism when
he met the Douglasses, a relatively well-off African American family from
Philadelphia, in the early 1830s. Through both activism and teaching, Grace Douglass
and her daughter Sarah had worked to improve educational opportunities for free
African Americans in Philadelphia. In
1819, Grace Douglass and James Forten (1766-1842) co-founded a school, where
Sarah Douglass may have taught for the first time as an assistant teacher. When Sarah was twenty-one years old, she took
control of a school established by the Augustine Education Society. Thus, by 1831, when Sarah took up a collection
for Garrison’s newly-founded abolitionist paper, The Liberator, she was already an experienced teacher.

Grace and Sarah Douglass may have first met Garrison in June 1831, when he was
traveling to Philadelphia to address the free African American community. Correspondence
between Sarah Douglass and Garrison regarding the Female Literary Association,
a Philadelphia writing group for African American women, suggests that Garrison
and the Douglass family were on friendly terms by early 1832. That summer
Garrison was back in Philadelphia, visiting with the Douglass family. By the
end of the year, Garrison had likely learned of Sarah and Grace’s scientific
interests and teaching strategies.

Inscription on flyleaf by William Lloyd Garrison. Lectures, v. 1.

In late 1832, someone at The Liberator, possibly Garrison, read
and favorably reviewed Jane Kilby Welsh’s Lectures
on Mineralogy for the November 3 issue. Few books were reviewed for the
paper, although there was a running commentary on a Boston-based journal called
The Naturalist. Although the reviewer
occasionally dissented with The
Naturalist’s characterization of race – the reviewer refused to believe
that the condition of African Americans was biological, but rather was the
product of poor treatment – he generally commended the work. Welsh’s book may
have been highlighted because it was consistent with The Liberator’s practice of reviewing
didactic or useful works of science. Welsh’s theologicalperspective,
too,
may have been appealing; her geological narratives supported a
single-origin, universal creation of man that would have resonated with
the reviewer who found fault with The
Naturalist’s support of polygenesis.Regardless
of the reason, Garrison seemed sufficiently pleased with the work that he gave
it to Grace Douglass as a gift. Perhaps he gave her the very copy that was
reviewed for The Liberator.

The second volume of Welsh’s Lectures appeared in early 1833.
Garrison also gave this to Grace Douglass. Sarah Mapps Douglass’s name appears
on the title page of the Library Company’s copy, identifying her as a former
owner. That same year, Sarah Douglass left Philadelphia to teach at the African
Free Schools in New York. She returned in
1834 and founded a school for African American girls that opened in 1835. In
1852, Sarah would become the first African American student at the Female
Medical College of Pennsylvania, maintaining an interest in practicing and
teaching science throughout her lifetime.

Sarah Mapps Douglass’s Mineral Cabinet
and Teaching Science

Hand-colored plate. Lectures, v. 2.

Given how little we know about
the specifics of her pedagogy, Sarah’s personal copy of Lectures on Mineralogy is an exciting discovery. Sarah Mapps
Douglass very probably used Welsh’s booksin her classroom. Newspaper accounts
from the 1830s report that Sarah maintained a mineral cabinet to teach mineralogy
to her students. This cabinet, or a similar one, followed her to the Institute
for Colored Youth, where she later taught. Sarah would have curated this cabinet
herself, collecting and labeling specimens before presenting them to her
students for analysis. She may have learned to do this from Welsh’s books, in
addition to using them as the basis for lectures. As a private institution serving the city's recently freed black population, Sarah’s school struggled to
raise revenue to maintain operations, often seeking aid from the Philadelphia
Female Anti-Slavery Society to keep the institution afloat. With funds dear,
Garrison’s gift would have been a welcome resource. Furthermore, a book written
by a woman may have seemed an appropriate choice for teaching girls.

While nowadays we might look
askew at scientific justification of creationism, it is important to remember
that Welsh’s intermingling of science and religion was not unusual for this
period, and this should not detract from any sound instruction regarding the practice
of mineralogy in Lectures. Welsh is
our best opportunity to reconstruct the complexities of Sarah Douglass’s
scientific process. Sarah Douglass did not simply pick up rocks; she would have
known how to read the landscape, using contextual geological clues to locate
prized specimens.

Diagram of shears. Lectures, v. 1.

She also would have known how to use a variety of
mineralogical tools. Welsh’s discussion of scientific instruments reveals the
labor and knowledge used to create Sarah’s mineral cabinet. Mineralogists considered many factors when identifying specimens. One
such factor is a mineral’s cleavage, the tendency to break along smooth planes.
Welsh’s text depicts instruments meant to facilitate mineral analysis,
including illustrations of shears used to break rocks along cleavage lines and
a goniometer to measure crystal angles. Teachers often used such tools in
practical demonstrations to familiarize students with technical language. It is one thing to

Diagram of a goniometer. Lectures, v. 1.

abstractly
define cleavage – it is another to demonstrate what it looks like in class.
While teaching her students the rudiments of mineralogy, Douglass likely reminded
her students that learning science could bring them closer to God. It seems clear that she shared Welsh’s theological
outlook, as a report of her school in the December 2, 1837 issue of The Colored American echoed the preface to the book:

“Miss Douglass has a
well-selected cabinet of shells and minerals; well-arranged and labeled. She
has, also, a mind richly furnished with a knowledge of these sciences, and she
does not fail, through them, to lead up the minds of her pupils, through
Nature, to Nature’s God.”

Scholars will be able to make a
more nuanced assessment of the meaning of this comment through a close reading
of Welsh's writing, coupled with a reconstruction of how her book may have been
used in its day.

Annotations and Afterlife

In addition to the inscriptions identifying Grace and Sarah
Mapps Douglass as former owners, the books contain pencil annotations
commenting on the text. The annotator appears to be knowledgeable of early
geological and paleontological discoveries, adding his or her thoughts on trace
fossils, trilobites (extinct
marine invertebrates from the Paleozoic
Era), and the general nature of petrifactions (the
process in which organic material is converted into a fossil). The annotator
also approved of biblical scholar Granville Penn’s theories of Mosaic geology,
praising his work in the book's margins. There is consistency here regarding
the interrelationship between science and religion that makes one hopeful that
the annotations belong to Grace, Sarah, or one of their students. Penn’s theological
take on geology was most certainly out of vogue by the time the book ended up
at David McKay’s Old Bookstore in the late nineteenth century, making
subsequent owners a less likely fit.

Annotation on trilobites from Lectures, v 2.

Perhaps a reader can identify the handwriting sample? Could these inscriptions
be in an informal hand belonging to Garrison or the Douglasses? Do they belong
to one of Sarah Mapps Douglass’s students? If you have any insight, leave a
message in the comments below.

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